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U.S. Seizes Military Airport in Baghdad
U.S. forces battled the tattered remnants of Iraq's army for control of downtown Baghdad on Tuesday, crushing a couple of technicals counterattack and seizing a military airport. Saddam Hussein's fate was unknown after an attempt to kill him from the air. Inside the capital to stay, some Army units routed Iraqi fighters from a Republican Guard headquarters. Others discovered a 12-room complex inside a cave, complete with white marble floors, 10-foot ceilings and fluorescent lighting. Marines battled snipers as they fought deeper into the capital from the east. They seized the Rasheed Airport and captured enough ammunition for an estimated 3,000 troops. Ominously, they also took a prison where they found U.S. Army uniforms and chemical weapons suits possibly belonging to American POWs.
Ahem, we need to know more about that.
On the city's northern side, Army forces set a Republican Guard barracks ablaze. Warplanes flew their bombing runs unchallenged, and smoke poured out of the Ministry of Planning building in the city's center. ``We are continuing to maintain our ability to conduct operations around and in Baghdad, and remove them from regime control'' said Capt. Frank Thorp, a spokesman at U.S. Central Command. Four days after Americans first penetrated the Baghdad outskirts, the city showed the effects of the war. Civilians roamed the streets with Kalashnikov rifles in hand, uncollected garbage piled up, and there were long lines at the reduced number of gasoline stations still open.
They might want to dump those AK's...
The Iraqi counterattack began shortly after dawn when an estimated 500 Iraqis jumped off trucks and buses, firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at Army forces holding a key intersection in the western part of the city.
Sounds like they don't have anything with a punch any heavier than an RPG.
Two A-10 warplanes were called in to provide air cover, strafing building tops and directing 30 mm rapid cannon fire against the Iraqis. ``They're a beautiful thing,'' said Capt. Philip Wolford, a company commander with the 3rd Infantry Division, as the jets roared overhead. He said at least 50 Iraqis were killed in the attack, and the rest routed. Two U.S. soldiers were reported wounded, one seriously, by snipers on nearby rooftops. Marines combed the site of a Republican Guard junior training facility, and came across 15 bunkers full of rifles, anti-aircraft artillery, missile systems, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons. ``It's the largest cache of weapons since we crossed the border'' from Kuwait, said Capt. Shaine Grodack. He estimated the cache was big enough to arm a regimental force - a few thousands soldiers.
All of which will be blown up shortly.
Posted by: Steve White 2003-04-09
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=12737